Ganga Bishan vs Puran Singh

Dua, J.—This is a tenant''s revision and is directed against the order of the learned District Judge, Amritsar allowing the appeal from the order of the Rent Controller and directing the tenant''s eviction and delivery of possession of the house in dispute to the landlord.

Puran Singh landlord had initiated proceedings for ejectment of Ganga Bishan on ground of personal requirements and the only material issue which arose in the proceedings is :

Whether the petitioner bona fide requires the premises in dispute for the residence of his son who is married ?

The only point which concerns this Court now centers round the circumstance that during the course of the proceedings another tenant of the landlord had vacated the accommodation in his possession and this was urged to be sufficient to non-suit the landlord. The learned Controller thought that the portion vacated by Dewan Chand tenant was identical with the portion of which the landlord was seeking possession in the present proceedings, with the result that the present claim was not bona fide. On the basis of this conclusion, the landlord''s petition was disallowed.

On appeal the learned District Judge came to a contrary conclusion holding the accommodation vacated by Dewan Chand not to be sufficient for the requirements of the residence of the landlord''s son and his family who were about 9 members in all. The learned District Judge also noted that the landlord had offered to the tenant both before the Controller and before the appellate authority to shift to the accommodation vacated by Dewan Chand but the tenant expressed his unwillingness to accept this offer. From this also it was deduced that the portion vacated by Dewan Chand could not be considered to be as good and as commodious as the ore in possession of the present tenant. In a very well-reasoned order, the learned District Judge differed from the conclusions of the Rent Controller and allowed the petition for ejectment directing the tenant to deliver possession by 14th September, 1963, one month after the order.

On revision, the learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the accommodation vacated by Dewan Chand must be considered to be sufficient for the landlord''s married son and his family. In support of his contention the counsel has taken me through the statement of Puran Singh'' landlord dated 31st August, 1962 when he declined to even accept the key from Dewan Chand on the pretext, as the counsel describes it, that he was still his tenant and that he should personally come and deliver possession. This, according to the learned counsel, indicates that he is trying to conceal the true statement of affairs with the sole object of securing an eviction order to which he is not otherwise lawfully entitled.

I am unable to accede to this contention. It is true that the landlord was anxious to evict the tenant because his married son has a fairly respectable or large family and wants more accommodation. Fearing that the fact of Dewan Chand having vacated the accommodation in his possession might to some extent influence the Controller in refusing suitable relief to him he perhaps did overstate his case by insisting that Dewan Chand was his tenant so long as he did not personally come and deliver possession to him, but this can by no means be construed to amount to any deliberate concealment of a material fact. I should, however, not be understood to convey the impression that such concealment if established would in any way disentitled the landlord to the relief to which he would be entitled on the facts and circumstances of this case.

In my opinion, this case is concluded by findings of fact which are not open to challenge in the present proceedings in revision. As a matter of fact my attention has also been drawn to Mahabir Par shad v. Mohinder Kaur (1959) 61 P.L.R. 625, where I observed that it is not for the Controller to take the view that if he were in the position of a landlord he would not have required the residential building in question, for, that is not and cannot be the true test. It is the landlord''s requirements which have to be considered, though of course it is open to the Controller on proper material to conclude that the landlord is not requiring the premises bona fide.

The petitioner''s counsel has in the end prayed for time to enable him to vacate the premises. It is true that against the order of the learned District Judge directing him to vacate before 14th September, 1963 no challenge has been made in the grounds of revision that time afforded is too short, nevertheless as the respondent has agreed to give him one month more, in my opinion, it would be only reasonable to permit the petitioner-tenant to vacate the premises within one month from today.

For the reasons foregoing this petition fails and is dismissed with costs. The order will, however, not be executed for one month from today.